, 1887-07-07
ESTATES OF LORDS.
AeLlMPsE OF THE GREAT COUNTRY
HOMES OF TITLED ENGLISHMEN.

How n Palace in the Town and a Para
Warnings to Trespassers-A Few Crit
icIsms-
The great country homes of rich and
titled Engllshmen are something stagger-
ing. Almost anybody has sense enough
to know that dukes and lesser gentry live
in better style than most folks. but how
many who have not seen one Of these es-
tates realize their immensityi How many
chance to know that an English nobleman
often resides in an edifice whose main door
is two miles from the front gate' Do not
begin comparing such a place mentally
with single holdings in America like the
old Sullivan farm in Illinois. There isn't
even this JUNCTION for Yankee pride, for
these homes are not farms at all, but vast
Enclosures of garden, field, hill, vale,
meadow, copse, and forest solely for the en-
joyment Of the owners and their families.
Nothing Is usually ''raisedh on them eX-
cept what may be used by the immediate
residents, their servants, and stock.
Thu income for the maintenance of
such a home comes from outside rents,
for the possessor of n castle set in the
midst of a private park ten square miles
in extent may also own a huge slice in the
heart of London, half a dozen villages in
the neighborhood of his home and two
thirds of a county in Ireland. 1t is with
the enormous rentals squeezed out of
these that a palace in town and n paradise
in the country quite as large and probably
much finer than the original Eden are
maintained. l have driven through parks
owned by plain misters; one actually be-
longed to Il Smith-it was "Colebro6k,"
near Tunbridge Wells-larger than Lin
coin park, while 1 have also been in the
domains Of more distinguished parties
whose grounds, with the adjoining de-
mesne, would afford more than room
enough for the whole city OF Chicago.
Fridge Park, in tho heart Of Kent, home
of the Marquis of Abergavenny, just seen,
is, with the accompanying contiguous
property, seven miles long by five wide.
The pleasure part alone contains $500
acres.
o FOR THE PUBLIC.
This and similar estates are not open to
the public, though portions of many of
them can be seen on stated days. They
are entirely for the comfort of my lord
and family and such friends as they may
choose to invite to walk, ride, drive, shoot
and otherwise disport therein. Some of
the cunning grounds, left wild only that
his lordship and cronies may in fall and
winter pop over the tenderly preserved
pheasant and grouse, are extensive
enough to build towns upon. How woul
the American sportsman, accustomed to
ramming right into any farmers wood
and fields in quest of his prairie chicken
and partridge, like that A little figuring
and inquiry make it possible to learn who
is the steward in charge OF almost any
one of these grand Enclosures, and from
him admission to the parks is usually OBJ
tainable. But otherwise boards duly let
tered are up everywhere, warning away
the trespasser and giving him careful no.
tice that If he is a man he will be prose-
cuted; IL n cat, destroyed.
The buildings in tho vicinage belonging
to the estate are often marked by the
crest or else the initial of the owner, and
sometimes the A for ~Abergavenny, b
for Beaufort, &C." for Cairnes, "D" for
Devonshire, and 80 on through the whole
peerage alphabet, may be seen upon a
majority Of the cottages, ale houses and
other structures for miles around. A
friend was telling me that on his first
visit to the English country he struck into
n sc" neighborhood-a Grafton, Green
vile, Gainsborough or Cover, it doesn't
matter which. He didn't know ut first
hat it stood for, but from the magnitude
and splendor of the estate, the universal
Difference accorded to its unseen owner
and the initial letter, all c, nbined, he
thought perhaps he had at last reached
the place where God lived.
A FEW CRITICISMS.
OF the extent and beauty Of such an
estate as Fridge, for instance, its scores of
scrvants in castle, gardens, parks and
fields, its imposing residence and magni6-
cent surroundings, it is next to impossible
to tell. 1t seems ungracious to return the
courtesy of admission with criticism, but
fpyv xVhn hphO1d ito VaQtnaGq and Urundanp.
can help thinking of this and like domains
that they are too much to be held in per-
petuity for the personal delectation of
single families. No one household has the
capacity to enjoy such colossal homesteads
while rent racked tenants fight their hard
lives Oh pinched Irish farms or in the
crowded slums of London.
Why not cut up these gigantic home
steads and rent or sell the bulk of them to
other people before the 35, 600, 900 souls of
England, now living on an area not much
larger than the state of Illinois, weary of
such inequality, OF all brutes the Anglo
Saxon, once convinced that he is wronged,
is the worst an inscrutable Providence is
known to have yet fashioned. Who can
say that some day, sick Of grinding a
hopeless life along in the country hove
or with a crowd of wretohed families like
his own in the murky tenement of a Lon
don alley, while my lord keeps merely for
his pleasure grounds fertile hills and val
leys which can only be seen across with n
spy glass or comprised by a hard days
walk, this same brute may not rise in his
ugly might and scrawl a new page of his
tory beside which the bloody record of the
French revolution shall read like a pas
toral poemf-London Cor. Chicago Tri-
bune